


What's In a Name?

by StrongerThanAnySword



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4250454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerThanAnySword/pseuds/StrongerThanAnySword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When did they start calling each other anything but their real names?  How do they stop?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kidnapper, Cockroach, King

_"Where's my potion?"_

The voice boomed over the stage, silencing anyone who might have been speaking.  Marianne couldn't move her arms; they were being held bruisingly tight, her front crushed against the rough grain of the wooden stage at the Elves' Summer Festival.  Horrific goblins on every side, all lumbering muscle and sharp teeth or beaks and tiny cunning eyes, and her sword was driven point-down into the stage, too far away to be of any good.

_"I've been...mistreated.  I've been abused...I've been trespassed, and invaded..."_

He appeared in a flare of sparks and smoke, looming out of the nowhere with a gravel voice, all sharp edges and snarl.  Marianne's suddenly couldn't breathe; her heart jerked and stammered to a stop, her chest constricting with every step he took toward her, toward her family and their subjects, almost cowering against the stage.   **The King of the Dark Forest is here.**

He wrenched her sword out of the wood and tossed it into the air as if it were a dandelion seed; the ominous _whoosh_ of it turning end-over-end disappeared over their heads. He was the personification of her nightmares, the ultimate reminder of the most terrifying moment in her life, and in her near-panic Marianne wondered if she was dreaming again somehow, safe in her bed, not seeing this at all but only imagining it again--

_"And I am not amused!"_

He was singing, and when he pointed directly at her with the head of his wicked-looking staff, she jerked into motion, realizing at last that this was all real.  A wave of dread washed through her heart and veins like ice, but she was struggling against her captors again, desperate to get free and _do something._   Out of the corner of her eye she saw more goblins approach the stage, heard Sunny's muffled  _"Dawn!"_ and the rough slide of a heavy sack on the stage which couldn't mask the  ** _chunk_ ** of her sword striking back into the wood.  Breath catching in her throat, she could only hope nobody had gotten hurt when it hit.  The sack, at any rate, didn't seem injured--more importantly, no cry came from inside it, and for the moment Dawn was safe...ish.

_"I've been insulted...disrespected...I've been mistreated!"_

The King was singing and giving a spin, tattered wings glinting under the lights.  Marianne almost missed his gesture amid the long limbs and strange wings, but it was impossible not to understand the burlap sack lifting into the air, held by goblins on dragonflies.  Choking down a scream, Marianne roared instead.

"Release my sister, you scaly-backed cockroach!"  Marianne's surge forward took her captors by surprise and they couldn't hold her down; she was on her feet again, flinging herself forward, and fighting one arm free, then the other, staggering forward only to find the first arm captured again, more goblins rushing to subdue her struggle toward their King.

 


	2. Tough Girl

The barb hit closer than he would have liked.  It wasn't anything he should have listened to, he knew, but then as a King, wasn't he allowed to respond to threats and insults in kind?  So he bared his teeth and flew forward, toward the Fairy, and delivered his terms.

Well, that was what he intended.

It started out great.  

"Return the potion by moondown, Tough Girl," he said, voice loud and meant to carry to everyone around them.  Short and simple.  But when it came to his retort to her name-calling, he had stalled slightly, settling (somewhat lamely) on "Tough Girl."  He didn't know her name, after all, and she was--he begrudgingly took stock--beautiful, though assuredly frail, in the way that most Fairies were.  Nothing that should phase him.

Yet, when he landed in front of her, he saw that she _wasn't_ like the others; not at all.  In addition to struggling  _toward_ him instead of cowering or screaming as the rest of the 'Fair Folk' were, she was breathing hard, her own teeth on display, clearly ready to spring on him. She looked, well...fierce.

Still, a threat should work on her, yes?  So he opened his mouth again, words coming unbidden, fueled by the way he knew everyone around saw him, by the predominant emotion at the Festival: fear.

"Or you'll never see your sister again."

Her answer to that, the threat that was meant to cow her, to cause her to drop her gaze and maybe even cry a little?  

_She landed a punch to his sodding face_ _._

**Author's Note:**

> To me, names are pretty intimate things, and it struck me during my hundredth rewatch of Strange Magic that they pretty much never call each other by their given names, and I haven't seen any fic touch on this yet; they all just skip to "Marianne" and "Bog". I thought I would try to fill that space! As usual, I'm pretty much incapable of writing a one-shot.


End file.
